The word 'critical" has three meanings which are dangerous, important, and disapproving. The purpose of this blog is to examine important or over-looked cultural, political, artistic, or historical issues of our time. Also, this blog is intended to be educational.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Thank God For California!

In
a big, red year for Republicans, California was one of the few places in
America that got even bluer in 2016. As the largest of only
five states that emerged with Democrats controlling both chambers of the
legislature and the governor's desk, the Golden State quickly promised a wall of resistance to conservative
policies coming out of Washington, D.C. And as President Donald Trump
approaches his 100-day mark, Californians have beefed up vows to push back with
legislation and lawsuits.

The
relationship hasn't been all hostile. Trump approved hundreds of millions
of dollars to help California recoup from ravaging winter storms after Gov.
Jerry Brown appealed for assistance. In his State of the State address earlier
this year, Brown also signaled that he believes infrastructure is an area where
"we can all work together."

But
much of the action in California, where Trump began his tenure with the lowest approval rating of any president in the past 60 years, has
been persistently defiant. Here are seven examples.

Climate change conflict

Before
Trump even took office, Brown said that if the president backed down from climate
change research, "California will launch its own damn satellite."
After Trump released a proposed budget gutting funds related to that work, Brown said he
conferred with officials from other states and countries about how to fill the
gap, promising a California-charged "countermovement."

Play

The
state has meanwhile reaffirmed its commitment to strict

greenhouse
gas emission regulations, as Trump has moved to roll back those back at the
federal level, which may lead to a showdown in court. And California Attorney
General Xavier Becerra has joined other states in threatening to sue
the federal government if it delays issuing energy efficiency standards for
products like ceiling fans and air conditioners. California can pressure
businesses to cater to greener standards by setting them at the state level,
because many companies can't afford to miss out on selling their products in
the world's sixth-largest economy.

Sanctuary state (and city)
showdowns

On
April 3, the California Senate passed a "sanctuary
state" bill in defiance of Trump's promises to starve such jurisdictions
of federal funds. The measure would prohibit state and local law enforcement
agencies from using their resources to aid in federal immigration enforcement.
The bill's author, state Sen. Kevin de León, accused the Trump Administration
of "spreading fear and promoting race-based scapegoating" toward
immigrants, while pursuing "inhuman and counter-productive mass deportations."

While
that measure may mean a coming legal fight between California and the
Department of Justice, which has already announced that it will deny grants to
sanctuary cities and states, other lawsuits have already been filed. San
Francisco sued over the Trump
Administration's threats to deny federal dollars to cities that limit
cooperation with immigration authorities, as did the county of Santa Clara.
Dozens of cities, including Los Angeles and the state capital of Sacramento,
have signed on to the latter suit.

Protecting immigrants

The same day that the state Senate passed the
"sanctuary state" bill, those lawmakers also passed a measure that
would dedicate $12 million to defending immigrants in deportation proceedings.
(Though immigrants have a right to counsel in those cases, the government has
long had "no obligation to provide an attorney for those who are unable to
afford one," as one law review article put it.) The move
comes as Trump has expanded the types of immigrants being targeted for
deportation and instructed agencies to more aggressively enforce immigration
laws. Several otherbills that would bolster
immigrant protections have yet to be voted on by a full legislative chamber.

Border wall boycotts

The
Bay Area cities of Oakland and Berkeley have both passed measures that would deny city contracts to firms that take
part in building Trump's proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. San
Francisco is considering a similar proposal. "It goes beyond symbolic
protest of the wall at the border and basically makes a statement through San
Francisco's action in the marketplace that the city will not be complicit with
the building of this wall in any way," says San Francisco Supervisor
Hillary Ronen, the bill's author.

California,
along with several other states, is considering another tactic that uses money
as a stick: requiring public pension funds, the nation's largest — to divest
from any companies that help build the barrier. "This is a wall of shame
and we don’t want any part of it," Assembly-member Phil Ting, a San
Francisco-area Democrat, said in a statement about the proposal.
"Immigrant stories are the history of America and this is a nightmare.” A poll conducted by the University of California at
Berkeley found that California voters oppose the wall by a three-to-two margin.

Russian interference and
tax returns

A bill currently in the
state Assembly's committee on education would require that a California
commission consider adding material on "Russian interference with the 2016
United States presidential election" to high school history textbooks.
Another resolution passed by the state Senate, which is toothless beyond
expressing the sentiment of lawmakers, calls on Congress to order a bipartisan,
independent investigation into any ties Trump, his presidential campaign or his
"business empire" might have with Russia.

Both
that measure and another resolution also call on the President to release his
tax returns, "including any pertinent documentation which can reveal
foreign interests and financial interests which may put Donald Trump in
conflict with the interests of this nation."

Protecting legal marijuana
markets

In
an interview shortly after the election, a representative of the cannabis
growers industry in California told TIME that many farmers feel safer, despite
uncertainty about whether Trump might crack down on marijuana. Their reason? In
2016, voters in the state legalized recreational pot and California is now
working with the industry to legitimize cannabis as a crop. “For the first time
in the history of my life, at least, the state government is our ally,"
said the California Growers Association's Hezekiah Allen.

Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, who has denounced legalizing marijuana, has sent mixed
messages about how strongly the feds might go after people in states where it
is legal. In the meantime, California AG Becerra has vowed to defend the will
of the state. “Everyone, and I mean everyone, who plays by California’s rules
deserves to know: we’ve got your back," he said at a hearing in January.
Members of Congress are also planning to reintroduce an amendment to an upcoming
spending bill, named after California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrbacher,
that would prohibit the Drug Enforcement Administration from using funds to
interfere with legal medical marijuana markets.

Grassroots movements and
protests

When
Trump's top immigration official recently came to Sacramento, hundreds including the city's mayor showed up to
protest the actions the President has taken on refugees and undocumented
immigrants. Marchers taking to the streets to push for workers' rights on Cesar
Chavez's birthday in late March carried new signs this year that simply said
#resiste.

The
momentum has been sustained since before Trump took office, as hundreds of
thousands of Californians have shown up throughout the state to march for women's rights and immigrants' rights and LGBT rights. Tech workers in Silicon
Valley have been hosting hackathons to build apps that
make it easier to appeal to members of Congress (often to oppose policies being
pushed by Trump and other Republicans). And a quixotic movement to secede from
the country known as #CalExit continues to forge ahead, with organizers hoping
to have a vote on leaving the union in the next two years.

Most
Californians don't support a declaration of independence, though
Democrats (44%) are much more likely to say they would jump ship than
Republicans (15%). After all, that arguably crosses a line between resisting
and giving up on the idea of a more perfect union. As state Sen. de León, the
author of the sanctuary state bill, said to TIME in an interview for a previous story
on California's reaction to the election, "We can’t secede, we need to
lead."